Diary of an Arcade Employee

More on the 1978 DEVO Appearance on Saturday Night Live

Last Sunday’s DEVO post was so popular I decided to do some follow up work on the performance and got some insight from DEVO’s own, Gerald Casale. I asked him if the agitation shown by members of the Saturday Night Live cast during those seemingly uncomfortable closing credits, where Booji Boy crawled around the stage, was real? I also wondered if this had been talked about in interviews before. Casale was nice enough to respond:

No, it was all too real. I have spoken about those 3 days in interviews. Incredible and unparalleled are the operative words.

This is exactly what I wanted to hear. It was all real AND their was other source material to look for (I love long term quests). So far I have been able to find one interview that has been posted online, but I will keep looking. The interview I found was one that Casale gave to Acid Logic’s Will Forbis. It looks like DEVO made quite an impression on the cast.

We appeared on SNL in October of 1978. Mark began dating Laraine. Belushi snorted the entire contents of the first gram of coke I ever purchased. Dan said he was sorry he threw away the DEVO video I had sent him a year earlier.

Obviously Akroyd really became a fan (and sorry he SHOULD be), because as many of you know, DEVO did the very awesome theme song for his underrated film “Doctor Detroit“. As for Belushi taking the entire gram of coke from Casale, that is kind of an honor, like Willy Wonka taking all of your candy.

I often tell the story of seeing that SNL appearance and thinking DEVO was the stupidest band ever. By the time the episode was repeated, a couple months later, I was a MAJOR DEVO fan and have remained that way ever since!! (and I love Jihad Jerry… more so when a live audience in OrangeCounty had no idea what to make of his appearance during a DEVO set!!)

I was 10 years old when I layed down on the living room floor to watch SNL and saw a performance I’ve never forgotten. A band I’d never heard of named Devo comes out in yellow jumpsuits and starts playing “Satisfaction”. I was like ..who ARE these guys??? It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. They were so different than anything else in that age of disco lameness. It was more an event than a musical performance. The look, the sound and their movements made it all quite memorable

I remember watching Devo on Saturday night live that night and I must say it really made an impression on my 7 year old mind. I especially remember the Jocko Homo performance where they stripped out of their jumpsuits and were wearing the black shirts with “DEVO” on them. I think all the other kids at school thought I lost my mind when I went around saying “We are DEVO!” I never became a huge Devo fan but that performance on SNL is something I’ll never forget.

I remember that night like it was yesterday these guys playing Satisfaction I was hooked as a fan I thought is was so cool back then. When they stopped playing they just STOPPED !! just like that. The movements were so cool. My son’s nickname was booji boy !! He’s 32 now and probably won’t own up to that !!